Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'On Multiplying Entities' and 'Equality'

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13 ideas

2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 6. Ockham's Razor
The quest for simplicity drove scientists to posit new entities, such as molecules in gases [Quine]
In arithmetic, ratios, negatives, irrationals and imaginaries were created in order to generalise [Quine]
6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 3. Axioms for Geometry
Archimedes defined a straight line as the shortest distance between two points [Archimedes, by Leibniz]
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 4. Events / c. Reduction of events
Explaining events just by bodies can't explain two events identical in space-time [Quine]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 11. Denial of Necessity
Necessity could be just generalisation over classes, or (maybe) quantifying over possibilia [Quine]
23. Ethics / D. Deontological Ethics / 3. Universalisability
The general form of moral reasoning is putting yourself in other people's shoes [Nagel]
24. Political Theory / A. Basis of a State / 4. Original Position / c. Difference principle
An egalitarian system must give priority to those with the worst prospects in life [Nagel]
25. Social Practice / B. Equalities / 1. Grounds of equality
Equality was once opposed to aristocracy, but now it opposes public utility and individual rights [Nagel]
The ideal of acceptability to each individual underlies the appeal to equality [Nagel]
In judging disputes, should we use one standard, or those of each individual? [Nagel]
25. Social Practice / B. Equalities / 2. Political equality
Equality can either be defended as good for society, or as good for individual rights [Nagel]
Equality nowadays is seen as political, social, legal and economic [Nagel]
25. Social Practice / C. Rights / 1. Basis of Rights
A morality of rights is very minimal, leaving a lot of human life without restrictions or duties [Nagel]